Last year, over 13 million foreign visitors took a trip to Japan. Many of the country’s best attractions, though, are actually hundreds of years old. That means that while they’ve been drawing more international travelers than ever in the 21st century, they were hardly being ignored in the 20th, as shown by this collection of retro-cool travel posters from the early and mid-1900s.

Quite often Japan is ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to things like technology, convenience stores, and even shoes. But surprisingly it can lag behind everyone else in the most random areas.

This time around, Japanese Twitter users have only recently discovered “the negative photo illusion,” where you stare at a photo for 30 seconds, look away, and see something “magic.” If you’ve seen this before, don’t spoil it for the thousands of Japanese Twitter users going crazy over it. And if you haven’t seen this before, well then click to see more! You’ve been missing out for years.

Photo editing can be something of a double-edged sword; it can enhance your images and make everything look better, but left in the hands of the notorious Photoshop trolls, a simple portrait can easily become the biggest joke of the year.

It is common for cosplayers and photographers to tweak cosplay photographs to achieve a more convincing finish, but as with most things in life, moderation is key. A series of photos of a particular Korean cosplayer has been attracting attention online as of late, with many netizens calling it a case of Photoshop overdose. See the pictures and decide for yourselves after the jump!

The French actress Emmanuelle Riva is best known for her role in Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour, an innovative 1959 drama that explores memory and loss against a background of the after-effects of the Hiroshima bombing. While filming on location in Hiroshima, Riva also took these striking photographs of the city and its people, which provide a fascinating peek into everyday life in Japan back then.

A picture is worth a thousand words. That’s certainly the case with the following collection of stunning photographs taken in Korea between 1890 and 1903 by visiting foreigners. The diverse, everyday scenes they depict shed light on the lifestyles of people at the time. Interestingly, this pictorial set was circulated around the Internet in Thailand, where people were surprised to see such vast differences in lifestyle as compared to the lives of South Koreans portrayed in modern-day K-dramas…a lot can change in a hundred years! You don’t want to miss a single one of these photos or the reactions of Thai people after seeing them!

Without a doubt, the word “geisha” is one that even those who know little to nothing about Japanese culture are familiar with. Written with the kanji characters 芸 meaning “art” and 者 which represents “person”, geisha are masters of traditional dance, music, song, and even parlour games, making them quite the superstars of their day.

Join us after the jump for a look at a selection of picture cards of both famous and anonymous geisha, at the height of their fame and while still in training.

The other day, I was walking through sunny Hollywood on my way to a job when, right before my eyes, I spotted everyone’s favorite rodent, Mickey Mouse. I had met Mickey once before in New York, but now he looked different – a little gaunter.

Thinking, “something’s not right” I approached him to ask for a photo like I did in NYC.